Kay Hartley Mortarium Archive Project
Kay F. Hartley, Ruth Leary, Yvonne Boutwood, 2022. (updated 2025) https://doi.org/10.5284/1090785. How to cite using this DOI
Data copyright © Kay F. Hartley, Ruth Leary, Yvonne Boutwood unless otherwise stated
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- ADS Collection: 4227
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1090785
- How to cite using this DOI
Region: NW
Potters | Region/Industry Overview
Introduction to Stamped Mortaria made in North-West England
K. Hartley
Despite some pottery production during the Flavian occupation of Scotland (at Inchtuthil, Elginhaugh, Newstead and probably elsewhere), mortarium production in north-west England and in the north of England in general, was very slow to take off. Needs in the North and in occupied Scotland were largely met by important potteries in the north of France (Oise-Somme, probably the Evreux area and elsewhere) and in the Verulamium region (Brockley Hill, Herts; Little Munden etc.); also, to a smaller extent by A. Terentius Ripanus who probably worked in Gloucester and the makers of Gillam Type 237 mortaria (probably also from the south-west). Some Verulamium region mortaria were still being imported into Scotland during the Antonine occupation.
Some mortarium production in the 1st century is found at Chester (see GIIMINVS). Small late 1st-early 2nd century pottery kilns are known from the Cheshire Plain at Manchester, Northwich and Middlewich, mortarium production is known there and probably near Wigan too; certain stamps from those productions have been identified only from Northwich (see INC119 and 124) and Middlewich (see INC118). All these potteries seem to have an emphatically local distribution.
When production of mortaria started in north-west England, it mostly, if not solely, took the form of major linked productions. This series of linked workshops, was situated at intervals between Stockton Heath/Wilderspool, Cheshire in the south to Carlisle in the north, and there was probably one, if not two in Scotland during the Antonine occupation. If the distance between workshops was of any importance, there could be another, still un-located workshop, between Lancaster and Carlisle. All the potteries were, of course, also producing other kinds of coarse wares.
- Stockton Heath, by Wilderspool, generally referred to as Wilderspool because contexts in early reports were rarely recorded (see Hartley & Webster 1973; May 1904). The industrial settlement and the presence of kilns are not in doubt; also the large numbers of stamps of DIS/LDB and lesser numbers of Decmitius and Memiceus (MIIMICIIVs) surviving. Two stamps of Austinus (Die 11) and one stamp of Doc(e)ilis 3 had survived. Judging from the pottery which we had available, including the samian, Peter Webster considered that the earliest realistic date for occupation was cAD100 and it might be slightly later. There are up to approximately 40 stamped mortaria from potteries in the Verulamium region, at Mancetter-Hartshill and at Wroxeter which would probably have reached Wilderspool in the first half of the second century, some before c130 plus one missing stamp likely to be Albinus (AD55-90). This agrees with the samian evidence and even when the fact is considered that Kendrick's and May's collections may have included some items from elsewhere, the large number suggests that the production on any scale at Wilderspool may have had a slow start.
- Walton-le-Dale, Lancs (not published). The industrial settlement, the presence of kilns and to judge from numbers, the large-scale activity of the three major potters involved in all these enterprises (DIS/LDB, Docilis 3 and Austinus) - all, are certain. This was a modern excavation and lots more pottery was available for study. Dr Jerry Evans commented that the basic function of the site was as a port on the west coast supply route, quoting evidence from David Williams concerning amphora. Judging from all the samian known from the site, Felicity Wild thought that the earliest occupation for Walton-le-Dale did not start before AD90 at the earliest and that a later date was certainly possible; the bulk of the samian is Hadrianic or early Antonine in date, cAD 125-150/160.
- Lancaster. There is an industrial complex at Quernmore and two kilns, but so far only an otherwise unknown potter, Tritus, is recorded. The production area for the attributed potters could be elsewhere in the area, but there is good circumstantial evidence to support the existence of one of these workshops in the vicinity of Lancaster (see DIS/LDB and Decanio below).
- Fisher St, Carlisle (Hartley 2012b in Johnson et al. 2012). There may be other workshops in Carlisle which were used by these potters. A small excavation in an industrial area, with 2 kilns, produced fragments from up to 11 mortaria stamped with Die 2 of Doc(e)lis 3 and 2 stamped with his Die 4; and one stamp of Austinus.
- Scotland: the evidence is based on the large numbers of stamps and the many appropriate sherds in the Inveresk/Musselburgh area of the potter EMI (http://journals.socantscot.org/index.php/sair/issue/view/301); also a lot of stamps of Doc(e)ilis 3; a second, possible site could be at Newstead which has the next largest number of EMI stamps; also Doc(e)ilis 3 stamps. There are many Austinus stamps at various sites in Scotland with no special concentration of numbers.
One specific mortarium type, normally unstamped which had links with areas occupied by the military, was also being made at most, if not all, of these centres. These were the mortaria termed 'raetian' (and sub-raetian (Hartley 2012a)). They were types normal to some Provinces on the Continent such as Raetia, Noricum, Pannonia and Germania Superior (and to a lesser extent, 'Germania Inferior'). Some potter or potters will have been drafted' or 'imported' into Britain from appropriate Provinces of the Empire. None of the raetian products in Britain are ever stamped. Sub-raetian mortaria are mortaria which are for the most part, entirely ordinary in profile though they often have a raetian-type spout and they also have the typical orange-red-brown slip which, in texture, is almost samian-like. In Britannia, the sub-raetian mortaria are normally also unstamped, but there are very rare occasions when they have a stamp. There are two such stamps at Wilderspool, both reading NANIIICO for Nanieco (mis-read by early excavators as 'ANIACO'). The die used is the die used by Nanieco in the Mancetter-Hartshill potteries in Warwickshire, indicating some mysterious link! In Hartley 2012a, I suggested that Nanieco might have moved to Wilderspool, but I am sure that was not the case. The rim-profiles at Wilderspool with this stamp fit with their Wilderspool origin and have absolutely nothing in common with his Mancetter-Hartshill products.
Wilderspool was undoubtedly the earliest of these large pottery productions, with Walton-le-Dale perhaps not much later. It may be that there was a 'progression' in the inception of the industrial complexes but there was a lot of overlapping in dates of production. Any workshops in Scotland were obviously the latest to be established, in the Antonine period. Possible dates are discussed in the Fisher St report (Johnson et al 2012). The production of the stamped mortaria can be dated within the period c.AD100-160/165. There is evidence to show that raetian- and sub-raetian-type mortaria were also made in these linked productions and to suggest that these unstamped productions continued. There was a dump of what appear to be overfired sub-raetian mortaria of slightly later date, at English Damside, Carlisle; even at Wilderspool there were 12 later unstamped and apparently locally made mortaria (Hartley & Webster 1973, fig 12, nos.121-124), some with raetian slip. This needs further research.
It is worth noting that the production of fine wares decorated with the Raetian slip can be linked with the production of Raetian mortaria; for those represented at Wilderspool, see Hartley 1981. Raetian fine wares have also been identified at Walton-le-Dale (Evans unpublished) and Carlisle (Zant and Howard-Davis 2019, 313 no. 20).
There is a good reason for the final date given for stamped mortaria. There were some unstamped, locally made mortaria present on the Fisher St site, but the stamped mortaria in Carlisle which post-date Doc(e)ilis and Austinus are mostly those of Mancetter-Hartshill potters like Iunius 2, Sennius and Maurius. Even the Mancetter-Hartshill potteries ceased to stamp mortaria at some point between AD170 and AD180 and their mortaria reached the north in growing numbers, soon becoming the most dominant mortaria in circulation in northern England. The end of production of mortaria stamped by Austinus, Doceilis and EMI coincides with the abandonment of Scotland, the refurbishment of Hadrian's Wall and probable changes in the military rearrangements south of Hadrian's Wall. Some mortaria being made in the north-east of England were still being stamped at a later date, at Corbridge, for example Bellicus, (these are readily recognizable); none of the later mortaria at Fisher Street are stamped.
What provides the obvious link between these workshops is the fact that the same potters (managers, master potters, or whatever potters' stamps actually signify) were involved in the different production centres, though not all of the potters were involved in all of the centres. Judging from surviving stamps, some might drop out altogether after being involved in two or three, and occasionally a new one appears, notably EMM[ at Carlisle, if I am correct in assuming this man to be the equivalent of EMI in Scotland.
The two potters who were active in all of the above workshops even in Scotland are DOC(E)ILIS 3 (13 dies) and AVSTINVS (11 dies), while DIS/LDB (1die only) appears in all the workshops except for any in Scotland, where no stamp of his is recorded. It is the concentration of Docilis 3 and Austinus stamps in Scotland which raised the possibility of there being either one or two workshops there (Hartley 2012b, 113). It is also highly likely that the potter, stamping EMM[, found only at Carlisle in England, is, in fact, the same man as the potter stamping EMI, whose stamps are found widely in Scotland.
The various spellings of stamps attributed to Docilis 3 can raise questions. and it could be asserted that one is dealing with more than one potter, but one should remember that everything about most of his stamps fit with some makers being at best semi-literate and involved in perhaps making new dies by copying stamps or dies; the doubling of consonants is common even in apparently literate stamps (see Johnson et al 2012, p112-113 for a discussion of the spellings). The abbreviation of names was also common practice.
Evidence for Lancaster
In comparison with the three stamping potters mentioned above, DECANIO is a rare potter (Wilderspool; Walton-le-Dale; Corbridge; Ribchester (3); and Bar Hill on the Antonine Wall); except, at Lancaster where there is a record of possibly up to at least 9 mortaria of his being found. In the early years of the twentieth century, Alice Johnson found a nest of 4 mortaria of Decanio, of progressive size, on the site of the Co-operative stores; two of these are in Lancaster Museum (Johnson 1907; Jones and Shotter 1988, p92-3). John R Lidster made a plaster-cast of a stamp of Decanio which was in a job-lot of sherds being sold by dealer, Robert Clough. A mortarium in the Mayer Collection seen in the Merseyside Museum, Liverpool is likely to be from Lancaster 1849-1850, Colquitt St. (cat. P8 no.12 in the list of types of objects found during railway excavation). This description is for no.19 in the Mayer Collection catalogue; it is probably my 18K; it should probably be numbered M7594 (not M12843). In Watkins, Roman Lancashire, p187 he mentions an incomplete stamp found at Lancaster which read DE.A..OF.C..; this is very likely to be a stamp reading DECANIOFECIT. Two mortaria of Decanio were found on the site of Mitchell's Brewery and are now in their collection - interestingly one of these two is in the usual oxidized fabric while the second one is in a slightly micaceous, slightly pinkish, cream fabric of a completely different type showing that he had access to two differing clays.
What appears to be proof that some of this set of potters were working in the vicinity of Lancaster, is the presence of a large sherd from a mortarium of DIS/LDB which has so many waster cracks underneath the flange that if it were complete, it would surely make it a 'second', if it had been complete; there is no sign of any use.
DECMITIVS was mainly active at Wilderspool, but there are 2 of his stamps from Walton-le-Dale and just 1 from Lancaster. By contrast, all five stamps of the minor potter MIIMICIIVS (Memiceus?) are from Wilderspool.
What I have not mentioned, are any early links pre-dating the setting up of the Wilderspool workshop. Both Peter Webster and myself had thought we saw some links between Wilderspool and Wroxeter and Carlisle. Work on these potters since 1973 has supported these ideas. A link back through Chester, Holt to Wroxeter is very clear in the production of the raetian mortaria which were undoubtedly made at Wroxeter and Holt and possibly at Chester. There is in my opinion, a major link from Docilis 1 and 2 (reading DOCCI.F and DOC.F) stamps at Wroxeter to the Doc(e)ilis 3 mortaria made in these workshops from Wilderspool to Carlisle.
Stamped mortaria attributable to Wroxeter also have a notable presence in north-west England (and Wales), even reaching Bar Hill and Old Kilpatrick on the Antonine Wall in Scotland on occasion. The distribution of Brico/BRCO, C.C.M, and OVID, whose stamps are present at Wilderspool, lies through Chester, Northwich, Segontium, even to Wroxeter; they are unknown outside this area. It is also worth noting that raetian mortaria were also made in the potteries at Wroxeter.
How was the whole industry on all the sites being organized, perhaps by a negotiator cretariae or whoever was in charge of the industrial complexes? How was Docilis 1 involved? Or, is it possible that when Wroxeter ceased to be a legionary fortress about AD90, it acquired some kind of executive power concerning the setting up or organizing of some of the continuing control of north-west England and Wales?
The major production of these potteries overall appears to have been concentrated in the Hadrianic, Hadrianic-Antonine and Antonine periods. The building of Hadrian's Wall and the occupation of Scotland fit well with the high production of Docilis 3 and Austinus at Carlisle and in Scotland.
The only obvious political event which might fit the end of the large-scale production in the region, is the abandonment of Scotland and the reorganization of Hadrian's Wall. It ought to be possible to discover whether the workshop at Carlisle had any part in providing for the re-organization of Hadrian's Wall, but the practice of stamping mortaria probably ceased in this area roundabout this time (though not in the north-east at Corbridge).
Whatever the reason was, major re-organization of mortarium and, indeed, other pottery supplies began at some point within the period AD160-180. The Mancetter-Hartshill potteries began to take over most of the market for mortaria.
